Bob Nickas

The 1980s are a distant mirror of the present: careerism, out-of-control consumerism, greed, and brutality. But the prospect of self-destruction can also create a new sense of community. Bob Nickas on collective resistance in an ambivalent decade.

In her collages from the beginning of the 1980s, Julia Wachtel made the image-worlds of Pop and trash collide. When she turned to painting, she remained loyal to her technique of hard cuts – which she has maintained ever since. Bob Nickas looks back on the era of infotainment, when picture-making was reinvented.